


Go to Sleep, I'll be Here When You Wake

by bigwolfpup, UnknownPaws



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka needs a hug, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anakin Needs a Hug, Anakin has "family", Anakin learning to let go, And still struggling, Angst, Brother-Sister Relationships, From an Rp we did, Hurt/Comfort, Just for a specific reason, Other, Rey Skywalker, Rey is a Skywalker in this, heavily AU, i mean obviously, its time to STOP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 12:07:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8623927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigwolfpup/pseuds/bigwolfpup, https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnknownPaws/pseuds/UnknownPaws
Summary: "Small whimpers came from the other side of Anakin, sounds that could only be described as struggled crying. "In which sleep is hard to come by, and peace is even more evasive.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TiBun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiBun/gifts).



Small whimpers came from the other side of Anakin, sounds that could only be described as struggled crying. Yes, Ahsoka had seen it all, heard it all. And she was crying at the pain of losing a close friend. Now Anakin was without most of the people he loved, and she was barely hanging on herself.

Hearing her struggle, Anakin gasped and immediately turned on his side, ignoring the pain flaring up from the wound in his abdomen. The droid squawked but he paid no heed, eyes drawn upon the little Togruta girl who had become so much to him in the passing years.

His student, his friend.

_(His little sister.)_

With a choked noise, he took her hand in his, helpless to do anything but watch as her life slipped away between his fingers, like Obi-Wan's had moments ago.

_(Like Luminara, lying nestled against Obi-Wan's side, or Barriss, huddled beside Ahsoka in a broken state. Aayla curled up with her head on Kit's shoulder, contented smiles frozen in place, the false imagery of peace. Quinlan, who in his stumble across the room, had landed in the pool, face down in the shallows like it were just another drunk night out in Coruscant's lower level. Eeth Koth, nestled against the rigid forms of Shaak and Plo, all huddled together in a sitting circle as if meditating in the gardens of the Temple._

_All in place, with nothing wrong; statues frozen in a dead illusion of serenity and ease.)_

Two pairs of blue, different shining light hues, met. And Anakin, his heart in his throat, whispered her name in a desperate call.

"Snips...!"

"An...akin..." Ahsoka was in pain. Much pain. "I... I don't want to die..." Her breathing was becoming as shallow as Obi-Wan's had.

Anakin choked. "Snips... Hold on! Just... just hold on, okay? It's... going to be alright, okay? We'll... we'll make it through this, okay?"

He swallowed, pulling her close, ignoring the obnoxious droid trying to force his screaming child - Luke, he thought to himself, the baby's name was Luke - onto him. He stroked her montrals, her lekku, and marveled at their length.

So close to adulthood, and yet here she was cutting her life short; it wasn't fair.

"We'll travel across the stars, yeah? We'll see the ends of the galaxy, maybe even more. We'll... teach Luke and Leia... and... Rey."

He glanced to his third and unexpected child, his second daughter - slightly smaller than her siblings - wiggling and whimpering upon a small blanket a few metres away (it felt, honestly, like she were light-years or generations ahead of him).

"I'm naming her Rey. Is that a good name, Snips? That sound okay to you?" he gave a watery smile to his student, his sister, holding her in his arms as if his presence alone could save her.

_(In the way he could've saved Padme.)_

"Rey... I like that name... And Luke. And Leia." Ahsoka shuddered, her heart trying it's best to keep pumping, to keep her alive. "I'd like... to travel..."

Anakin choked slightly. "Let's... let's go free the slaves, yeah? Like we said we cou- would. Like we are going to."

He glanced out the window, out at the blackness of space, staring at his face reflected in the glass. Tears rolling down his cheeks, eyes a soft yellow mixed with blue. His smile, fake and fancy, as Palpatine had crafted him, was etched out of pain and years of misery. His cheeks, hollow and pale, were red with fever, stained with blood. He was thin, so thin; his ribs carved out of his chest, skin stretched like a canvas, and his limbs resembled nothing but loose twings and branches tied to a useless trunk. His hair was dead, shine gone and colour dulled to a faint greyish-mud hue.

_(He was dead.)_

"Free the slaves... I'd like that." Managing a weak smile, Ahsoka looked up at Anakin with tears in her eyes. "I'm too young... I haven't gone through the trials yet..."

"I'll make some for you... You'll... be a knight Ahsoka. I promised you would. I'll keep that promise."

He moved his hand, fingering the beads attached to her headdress.

"It's been long enough... You're ready. You've always been ready."

Silence ensued for a moment before Ahsoka dared speak again, voice weak and wavering.

"Master... am I going to live?" Her eyes were tearful as she asked the question. "Am I going to end up like everyone else?"

Anakin said nothing; he had no words to give her. He could lie, but lying was never his strong point. So instead he steered away from the topic, running from the thing that scared him that most. What he never, ever been able to handle.

"Ahsoka... I'm going to knight you right now, okay? If we wait too much longer, we might get so busy we won't have another moment."

He keep his false smile upon her, reaching for Obi-Wan's lightsaber. The weapon was once a dead weight in Anakin's hand.

"But I haven't gone through the trials yet... how can I be knighted?" He words were shakily spoken, her eyes half way open with her tears falling down her face.

His smile turned real.

"You've gone through enough trials for a lifetime... for me" he murmured, stroking her cheek. "Now let me return the favour to you."

Igniting the saber, he lifted the beads with his shaking hand, pressing back the tight lump in his throat.

He recalled Obi-Wan's final words to him.

_"I will always love you."_

"I will always love you" he whispered, repeating those special words, then the vows of the Code, of the rite of passage he'd gone through - what all Padawans went through - and of the promise and honour it was to have another Knight grace the ranks of the Order.

(A dead, now corrupt Order, he thought humourlessly.)

The blade met the beads, and like a lifeline, Ahsoka's tether to Anakin was at last severed.

 Ahsoka gasped, her eyes widening before more tears began to fall. "Anakin... I don't want to die!" Her sobs shook her whole body as he felt it become harder to breathe.

 "Shhhhh..." he ran a hand over her still maturing montrals, tiny in comparison to the dead Shaak Ti's (who had since flopped like a limp ragdoll to the floor). "You aren't dying."

He swallowed, holding her closer, to his chest, where his heart beat heavily in her ear.

"You're just going to sleep. A nice long sleep... and I'll be there when you wake up in the morning."

"Master... please..." She curled up into him and watched him with teary eyes. "I don't want to sleep..."

Anakin swallowed. "You... don't need to stay awake for me, Snips. You're tired... even I can see it. It's..."

He shuddered, tears free falling.

"It's alright."

There, he'd said it. He gave her permission, though she never needed it - it was he who needed it. And now, albeit ready (he never would be), he was willing to let his little girl go.

"You can let go now, Snips. You can sleep. I'll be here when you awake. Forever and always."

He held her close, so she wouldn't see his face, and the pain he held in his gaze. In his smile.

"I promise."

Ahsoka trembled, but slowly her heart weakened and slowed until her breathing was very shallow and weak. Her tears soaked his chest. "Master..." Finally her little chest rose with its last breath, her last tears falling down her face in pain, in fear.

In relief.

Anakin closed his eyes to dam his own solemn flood, exhaling as Ahsoka's life faded away to nothing, her thinned threads pulling away from his finger's tangling grasp. It was over; a chapter once more closing the novel of life, Ahsoka's tale laid to rest by her beloved brother's own hand. And Anakin, in that moment of closure, of strength, _loathed_ himself. He was ugly, weak and pathetic, to let her go so easily without trying to save her-

**_(The darkness hissed and slithered beneath his control, coiling hard around his heart.)_ **

_ (He had to hold on, to keep himself steady, lest he become what they all feared, what would destroy him.) _

**_(But the pain was strong, the anger boiling in his vein, bubbling red hot in his flesh.)_ **

_ (But that's not what Ahsoka, or Obi-Wan, or Padmé, wanted. They didn't die for him to fall.) _

_ (He would live; no matter the pain, he would live.) _

_ (He owed it to them - no, to their sacrifice.) _

_ (He owed that much, at the very least).  _

**_(So the dark_ ** _ness died and in its plac e was light.)_

Anakin's heart quivered, head clearing to help him stand as the Jedi - the father - he was meant to be. But reality evicted his delusion, and once more crushed him to a small compressed shell of a man. He was nothing; he had everything he wanted, and he lost all he needed. He was free, a free man at long last. But forever he'd be a slave, to his guilt and pain. For this, he hated them, all his friends and proclaimed family, for burdening him. Leaving him behind; abandoning him for the Force. Leaving him to suffer from the trauma, the misery, the manipulation, the villainy; all of who he was and could be, the darkness that threatened to overthrow him. Even with it currently settled by his own convictions and proclamations, he could feel it. It swam within him, gnashing sharp teeth around his caged heart, ready to devour him whole. It resided inside him and always would.  But at the same time, he felt he could handle it. His experiences, all he had bore with throughout the years, they'd made him stronger. Somehow, he would make it through. And for that, he loved his friends and proclaimed family. They gave him this opportunity to live. To have the chance to be with his children, to see them grow. To guide them, love them, and mold them into better people than he.

A learning process he'd otherwise never have. They gave him their all so he would have any. For this, he was eternally grateful, and selfish. Because he allowed himself to smile in the wake of their needless sacrifice, for someone like he who was so ignorant, brash and undeserving.  That, he told himself, was the true beauty of selflessness, and finally he understood _exactly_ what that meant.  

He brought himself to look down at Ahsoka, her small face frozen in a state of eternal peace.

 Like she were sleeping.

He laid her down upon the cold marble floor, next to Barriss (as she should be, he reminded himself, without a second glance to the Mirialan), and pressed a tender kiss to the clammy, cold forehead. And whispered the final words of farewell that would serve her lullaby to an eternal rest.

"Good night, Ahsoka..."

He turned his head up to the figurative heavens.

"Thank you."

**Author's Note:**

> So this is actually part of an RP that Wolf and I did last night, and it just... it went downhill so fast @_@;
> 
> It was so sad, we were both sobbing by the time it finished. Anyways, this last bit was so touching, I just thought I was share it :3  
> As for Rey in here, well... it's an AU. That's all I'm going to say about it lol. Nah, we figured it would be interesting to play with the idea of the whole "Rey Skywalker" idea... by making her a sibling of Luke and Leia. Kinda an age swap then, I guess? I dunno. It's a bit more complicated, but I'm not going to say why here in case we want to post more stuff here. 
> 
> Also we listened to a LOAD of solemn music writing this. Which set the mood but wow. Too much. But we write that much regardless, so... (If you want the bloody list of theme songs for this single fic alone, comment lol we got a huge list, its so bad).
> 
> Hope you enjoyed our little slice of Hell.  
> \- UnknownPaws


End file.
